PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It was supposed to be a game night, but due to the Devils COVID-19 issues, the Pens practiced in New York and won't play until Saturday.
Defenseman Mike Matheson, injured on January 17, and forward Zach Aston-Reese, out since the start of the season, each went through most of the drills.
"Their progress is real encouraging," said head coach Mike Sullivan on Tuesday. "They're getting more involved with full participation in the practice. That's real encouraging from our standpoint."
Kris Letang did not practice, but remains day-to-day as evaluations continue on his injury.
Schedule change
"It is what it is," Sullivan said. "We're focused on playing the game and that's what we talked to the players about. We are going to control what we can and that's focus on the hockey and the day-to-day process and try to improve and get better. When the games come, we got to put our best game on the ice."
"Our expectation going into this is that there were going to be distractions and uncontrollables that are going to come our way just with respect to the pandemic alone. Just from a shear mindset standpoint. It's not anything our guys and our coaching staff isn't prepared for."
"We have to expect inconvenience. We gotta expect uncontrollable circumstances are going to come our way and we have to react accordingly."
Sullivan embraced the opportunity to have a couple of days of practice and potentially a couple of days off.
"I think it's a great opportunity for us," Sullivan said. "That's what I said to the players. I thought we had a real productive practice today. We worked on a lot of different concepts."
"We are going to try to accomplish two things. We are going to try to get better in the areas where we know we need to improve. We are going to try to give the players an opportunity to recover so that from an energy standpoint we are ready to play when the puck drops for the next game."
"We are looking at this as an opportunity for us to try and improve our overall team game in all different areas."
"You just have to focus on games and preparation and block out anything else," said captain Sidney Crosby who believes the practice day was beneficial for the team. "We've played some pretty good hockey. It comes down to executing a few mistakes. It's a small margin for error in this league."
